Perennial Hiring Headache? Strategies to Help You Relieve It

Is hiring a struggle, year after year? Does the mere thought of filling an opening bring on a headache? Long-term hiring challenges can mean your hiring strategy is failing to meet your needs. Here are some top tips to find the sources of your hiring headaches and eliminate them.

Start with the candidate you’re looking for. Who is your ideal candidate? Where are they coming from? How are they going to hear about this opening? What factors are likely to make them want to leave their current position to join your firm?
When you don’t “walk in the shoes” of your candidates, you risk missing key opportunities for an effective approach, a compelling recruiting process, or an appealing offer – and lose good candidates in the process. Your recruiter can help you understand your ideal candidates.

Reach beyond job postings to attract candidates. Even when your choice of job posting locations is data-driven and tailored to the candidates you want, if you rely on job postings alone to find top candidates, you’re missing half the field. Active job-seekers will read job postings, but “passive candidates” – those professionals who are already doing great work for your competitors but would join your company for the right opportunities – aren’t. Your recruiter, however, knows who the passive candidates are in your industry, and which ones will “fit” well with your current culture.

Take your application process for a test run. Is it tedious? Frustrating? What feedback do you get after you submit an application – if any? Many good candidates drop out of the process because the work of applying is simply not worth their effort. Make it streamlined and responsive to keep good candidates interested.

Teach good interviewing skills. Interviewing is a skill that can be learned – but too many companies treat it as something to be picked up “on the fly.” When hiring managers know how to interview well, interviews become highly effective tools for finding the best candidate and keeping them interested in the job, increasing the chances that the candidate’s response to “We’d like to offer you a position” is “I accept!”

By leveraging these strategies, you will be able to overcome many of the challenges that come with hiring initiatives. In addition to these tactics, companies who partner with a recruiting firm are able to not only overcome challenges, but also achieve long term hiring and company goals.

At TERRA Staffing, we help our clients think long term. Wherever the “pressure points” in your hiring process are, we’ll help you find and relieve them to hire better candidates in less time. Contact us today to learn more about our recruiting solutions in Phoenix, Seattle and Portland.

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One Comment

This is some really good information about staffing challenges. I like that you said you should take your hiring process for a test run. I don’t have the patience to sit and do a long survey just to get an interview for a job. It might be a good idea to have an employment office help you come up with a good hiring strategy.

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